Album of photographs, many by Australian official photographer Frank Hurley, documenting one of the major battles of World
War I, the Battle of Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, between July and November 1917.

Background

Frontline photographer during World War I and Arctic adventurer. James Francis "Frank" Hurley was born in Sydney in 1885.
As a young man, he taught himself photography, using a Kodak Box Brownie camera which he had bought on installments for 15
shillings. He spent three years as photographer for Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic expedition (1911-1914), and in
1914, joined the Ernest Shackleton trans-Arctic expedition, where he earned a reputation as a photographer who would do anything
for a picture. In 1917, Hurley was sent to the Western Front as an honorary caption in the Australian Imperial Force, and
as an official photographer, documented the Passchendaele campaign with some of his most famous images, recorded under such
risky and dangerous conditions that he was nicknamed "the mad photographer." Hurley believed that photographs could be manipulated
to achieve dramatic and emotional effects, and often clashed with battlefield historians who regarded as "fake" the composite
war images he created by combining two or more negatives.

Property rights to the physical object belong to the UC Regents. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the
creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright
owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.

Availability

Open for research. STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library
Special Collections for paging information.